


Style Redefined

by fallenice



Category: KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-23 12:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallenice/pseuds/fallenice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kame is a model. Nakamaru is his manager.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Style Redefined

Kame stands outside the display windows of Armani, staring at the clothes they have placed on the mannequins. He leans in, letting his hand press against the glass, and imagines how the clothes will feel like against his fingers. Would it be silk? Leather? Maybe nylon. He wonders if he will be able to walk for brands like this one someday, along the runways of Paris or New York, parading the season’s fashion to people around the world.

The salesperson is looking suspiciously at him from the inside and Kame takes it as his cue to move on. He stands at the entrance of Calvin Klein next; he takes in the smell of their signature perfume and daydreams about how he may one day be wearing it. The person in charge stares at him weirdly and Kame moves away again. He continues his wander around the streets of Ginza, with his brown canvas bag , an old faded brown coat, and his imagination for company.

The night falls gradually.

Kame observes as the shops close and people rush home.

He wishes that he had somewhere to return to too, but at least for tonight and the next few nights, he will only have these beautiful clothes to accompany him until daylight. There is an alley between the Chanel and Cartier shops, and Kame turns into it. He attempts to make himself comfortable with his limited possessions while silently hoping that the night will not be too harsh on him.

He hears a car screech to a stop and turns to look at the source of the sound. Posing with cars will be kind of cool, he thinks.

The window winds down and he hears a voice calling his name.

“Kame?”

“Nakamaru? What are you doing here?”

The driver steps out of his car and wraps a huge – and warm, Kame notes – coat over him. He guides Kame into his car despite his protests (which ranges from “I like it here” to “I am here to get a better feel of clothes”).

“You are coming home with me,” he says before starting his car once again and Kame can hear the worry in his voice.

Kame is weak to that voice.

 

***

 

“Your landlord says that she chased you out because you haven’t paid the rent for the past six months,” Nakamaru explains to Kame once they’re in his apartment, talking over a hot cup of cocoa, “And I thought that if there was anywhere you would be, it would have to be Ginza,”

Kame remains silent.

He decides to focus his eyes on Nakamaru’s long fingers.

Way prettier than his short stubby ones.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Nakamaru asks, this time in a gentler tone, and drags the chair to sit down opposite him.

“I didn’t want you to worry,” he replies, equally softly, and stands up to walk towards the coat rack.

Nakamaru stops him.

“Stay,”

“I don’t have money for rent,”

“Just stay,” Nakamaru repeats.

With a sigh, Kame concedes.

 

***

 

Kame spends the night on Nakamaru’s couch, but sleep does not come to him easily. He thinks about a lot of things – about how he has not had a decent job since Jin left, or about the things that they say to him to reject him. He tells Nakamaru, his manager, that he understands how the industry works and that to survive you must endure jabs to everything, from your personality to the way your arms are shaped.

That does not mean that it has not hurt him.

And he wants to stop burdening Nakamaru. He has been one of the constants in Kame’s life since Jin left and he has been so diligently helping him seek out new opportunities, connecting him with the limited number of photographers and designers that he knows, and Kame just feels… guilty. He feels like he is putting all of Nakamaru’s efforts to waste.

At the same time, he wonders why Nakamaru spends so much time on him when his other charge, Junno, is rapidly gaining popularity and will probably be worthier of his time.

He keeps thinking till the sun rises.

Nakamaru wakes up at 7am to the aroma of cocoa – he hates coffee – and pancakes with apple syrup on the dining table, courtesy of Kame who decided that, since he can’t sleep, he might as well make himself useful.

“Why are you awake this early?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Kame says and Nakamaru gives him a meaningful look that he avoids by focusing on the pan.

“I will call you if there is an open casting somewhere,”

“It’s okay, I will find myself a job at the convenience store or something,”

 

***

 

All models go through open casting at some point in their career. Although Kame is no amateur to this, standing outside the door with tons of other better-looking and well-built men who are competing with him for the same job still makes him feel awkward. Awkward or not, Kame tries to tell himself, it’s all or nothing. If he doesn’t take the first step, nothing will ever be accomplished.

_“You are not even 175cm,” says the first, “Why did you even come here?”_

_“His stomach isn’t even well toned,” says the second._

_“I think he’s too fat,” says the third._

_“The nose! Why is it crooked!” says the fourth._

Kame walks out of the casting more discouraged than ever.

He doesn’t tell Nakamaru any of this.

 

***

 

Kame finds himself at Ginza again.

The shops are bringing out the collection for the next season and if Kame is lucky, he might be able to catch footages from some of the latest runway shows. Higashiyama, his idol and one of the most revered seniors in the Johnny’s Modelling Agency, walked for Prada this season and Kame is dying to watch him awe people once again. He walks past Hermes first though, and the screen shows Kimura Takuya, another Johnny’s boy and one of Hermes’s regulars, walking with their signature jeans. Kame likes the way Hermes’s jeans sit on Kimutaku’s – as he is usually called – hips and the aura he has when he walks down the runway. Kame finds that he can’t turn his eyes away from looking at this senior of his. He wonders, in many of his daydreams, if he will one day be as prolific as Kimutaku.

“Kamenashi,”

He turns around to see someone in shades calling him from a car. Kame raises his eyebrow in confusion before the man takes off he sunglasses and says, “Hop on!”

_Mr Kimura Takuya._

Oh god.

Did he see him oogling from the corner of the Hermes shop? Kame wants to hide his face somewhere in shame right now. What will his senior think of him? Will he hate him? Will he laugh at him? It doesn’t help that Kimura-san has a reputation for being anything but nice. Maybe this senior wants to scold him for being a disgrace to the company or maybe say that he is unworthy of being a model. _This is terrible_ , he mutters to himself; he should run away.

But instead of running away, his legs lead him to the car.

Kame blames it on the star power.

He tries to avoid eye contact with the driver by focusing on his seat belt. But he somehow fumbles on it and he hears the clear laughter of his senior as he tries to get it right again. Kame wants the earth to swallow him up right now.

“So, how are you?” The older man asks, his tone too causal for someone so far ahead of Kame in the career that Kame finds himself unable to respond with anything except for a small fine.

“Are you sure? The Akanishi incident has hit you pretty hard,”

Right, his senior was not famous for being nice.

“How..did you know?”

Everyone knows about the Akanishi incident. In short, Akanishi suddenly abandoned his long-time modeling partner Kamenashi for the United States of America and left Kame to fend off the backlash by himself. It has also resulted in the freezing of Kame’s activities for a while and the reluctance of Johnny’s to openly endorse Kame, among many other things. It is, in other words, the main reason for Kame’s dismal state right now. Back when he was with Akanishi, the duo sold pretty well as a pair and many small to medium companies approached them (sometimes even directly) to endorse their clothes. Not anymore though. Nobody wants Kame anymore.

“We are all rooting for you,” The senior says, with a seriousness that departs from his usual flamboyance, as he parks his car at one of the department stores. He gets out of his car and gestures Kame for to follow him, and he does so only to find himself inside of Dolce and Gabbana.

The salespeople bow politely at Kimura who sits down on the sofa, crossed legged and hands stretched out.

“Kame-chan,” he tells the younger one, “Pick whatever you want,”

 

***

 

Kame returns home to find a baseball game on the table – the one that he has been eying from the games store every time he’s passed by it. He unwraps it enthusiastically and demands that Nakamaru play with him, ignoring all of his manager’s whines about how he is not good with baseball-related games and that he is in a call with Ueda who refuses to put down the phone on him because Ueda is feeling lonely.

Nakamaru ends up going with the flow anyway, because it’s Kame.

And Kame knows it.

There are many more things that Kame can think about right now, but baseball (he wanted to be a professional baseball player when he was a kid) captures his mind enough for him to at least give the negative thoughts a break.

“You’re in a good mood,” Nakamaru tells him halfway through the game.

Kame hums and continues thrashing Nakamaru on the baseball video game while filling Nakamaru up about his encounter with Kimura Takuya. Talking to Nakamaru, Kame realizes, is like coming home. He does not need to pretend to be someone else when he talks to Nakamaru, he does not need to censor anything, because Nakamaru never judges. And even if he rants, like when Kame beats Nakamaru 48-0 in the baseball game, Kame can still come back with the cheekiest replies.

“Never,” Kame says with a smirk on his face, “I don’t like to lose,”

“Why did I buy this again...” Nakamaru mutters to himself.

 

***

 

Kame is fixing dinner after yet another day of failed castings when Nakamaru picks up a phone call. He hears nothing of the phone call except that it seems to be a good one, and Kame thinks that Nakamaru looks adorable the way he goes “yes, yes” as he bows his head over the phone. Kame starts brainstorming new ways to poke fun at the other man as he serves the dishes. Before he finishes decorating the plate though, Nakamaru rushes towards him and drags him out of the house without a single explanation, pushing him inside his car.

“One of the models for Ueda’s Mousepeace show in 2 hours got himself into an accident and he needs a replacement,” Nakamaru explains as he starts the engine.

_An opportunity._

“If we’re in a hurry, why don’t you drive faster,” Kame deadpanned. But even that does not disguise the joy in his voice.

When they finally reach their destination, they are greeted with collective sighs of relief by the staff members, Ueda’s last minute alterations and Kame being shoved onto the runway without any prior rehearsals. Everything was happening so quickly.

 

***

 

“Inexperienced and Unqualified Male Model walking for MOUSEPEACE Designs,” the papers report the next day.

Unsurprisingly, it was anything but flattering.

 

***

 

Nakamaru tries to put the newspapers and fashion magazines out of Kame’s sight, hoping that he will not find them. But hiding them in the storeroom and under his bed is pretty much the whole extent of his creativity. The open pages of the magazines and newspapers cue Nakamaru in to his failure to conceal the news. He then changes the method and tries to cheer Kame up by buying him his favourite pasta and playing the baseball game which he never wins at.

The problem is, Kame doesn’t want him to know that he is affected.

He is still going for castings, he has also taken up to running around the area every evening and doing exercises at home to train his body. The quality of his housework has not worsened either. Nakamaru only knows that something is wrong because when Kame wins a game, his smile doesn’t reach his eyes, when the fashion news is on, he fidgets nervously, and when he thinks he is alone, he zones out in the kitchen. There is also the darkening eyebags as well as red eyes that Nakamaru notices in the morning, that tell him that it’s not all well.

And _that_ is what Nakamaru worries about the most – Kame suffering alone. But yet, he wonders if it is appropriate to ask. And if it is, then what is best method to ask. Directly? Roundabout? He knows for sure that showering Kame with sympathy is going to backfire and telling him everything is going to be fine is definitely going to get rebuffed.

“You’re not alone,” he tells Kame after dinner one day.

That is the best he can come up with.

Kame stares back at him, as though trying to come up with the right way to react to the statement.

“Thank you,” he says and escapes to the sink. Nakamaru follows. He is not letting Kame off this one.

“Why are you hiding your emotions?”

Kame bites his lips.

“I don’t want anyone to worry about me,” he admits after a long period of silence.

“But I want to,”

Kame spends the night with his head on Nakamaru’s shoulder. The older one’s fingers brush through his hair gently as he feels his sleeve getting wet from Kame’s silent tears. He lets Kame grip his shirt tightly as he cries, and uses his other hand to hold Kame even tighter. The gentle sound of Nakamaru’s breathing lulls Kame to sleep. Only when Nakamaru hears Kame’s soft snores of Kame does he lets sleep take over him too.

 

***

 

With a few short hours of sleep, Kame and Nakamaru start the day by heading to the main office for the scheduled monthly weight checks mandated in the contract. They usually also take the chance to say hi to some of their friends in the company.

They meet Koki – fashion designer-cum-stylist – at the entrance. He wraps an arm around each of them in a brotherly hug (which kind of hurts because of all the rings Koki is wearing) and asks them how they are doing (more specifically: Yo what’s up). Koki and Nakamaru were high school classmates and, according to Nakamaru, they used to be the comedic duo of their class and performed skits during breaks as “TANAKA”. They both applied to the Agency together and then pursued their own interests from there. After Kame was assigned to Nakamaru, he introduced them to Koki and they have been good friends ever since.

On their way in, the duo-now-trio spots Ueda, who is the chief designer for MOUSEPEACE DESIGNS, doing mandatory paperwork at his desk with his huge headphones on and blasting Gackt. Ueda and Nakamaru were classmates too, just that Ueda spent half the time looking out of the windows, claiming that he could see fairies (it turned out to be a lie) and the reason why they became close was because they took the same route home. His designing abilities helped him enter the Agency, which felt that they should have labels on their own.

Junno, Nakamaru’s other charge, is there as well (also for the checkups) and is trying to distract Ueda from whatever work he is doing. Kame, Koki and Nakamaru bet on how long it’ll be before Ueda snaps. But before they can see the outcome of their bet, Kame gets called.

Some junior staff directs Kame to another room, leaving Koki and Nakamaru alone, and the people there do the necessary measurements. When Kame finally goes back, he tells them that he needs to lose another 4 kilograms and has been recommended a diet plan that involves him drinking vegetable juices and eating bare minimums everyday.

Koki thinks it’s ridiculous and wants to tell the staff off. Nakamaru has to physically stop him and explains to him that it’s the part and parcel of being a model, and wants Koki to stop getting himself into trouble. Even Junno jumps into the conversation (he stopped distracting Ueda) by saying that he likes Kame the way he is.

Kame tries to assure everyone that he can cope and no one should worry about him.

No one believes him.

The conversation only ends when Ueda takes the headphones off and tells them that they are too noisy.

 

***

 

Kame throws a baseball glove at Nakamaru one morning. He chokes on the chocolate milk he’s been drinking before giving Kame a quizzical look.

“Let’s play catchball today?”

Before Nakamaru can ask where, what and how, he is already being dragged out of the house.

Not that he can ever resist Kame’s whims.

 

***

 

Nakamaru is heading out for a new day when he gets a phone call from Domoto Koichi, another top model of the Johnny’s Modelling Agency. Apparently the old man has specifically asked Domoto to “guide” Kame in the ways of modeling so that “he does not embarrass the company further”. Both Nakamaru and Kame think that last part is Domoto’s own addition but either way, an opportunity is an opportunity and Kame will use it to the best of his abilities.

Being part of Koichi’s entourage, Kame finds out, is more than just model training. Domoto does help him fix some of his bad postures and teaches him how to walk (although mostly offhandedly and framed as a complaint). But most of the time, he ends up helping Domoto change into various clothes and makes sure Domoto always has water to drink. Kame thinks he is more like an AD than a real model trainee.

But he does get some blessings once in a while. For example, one of the janitors for the Tokyo Fashion Week offers her room for Kame to rest in between breaks and even offers him toasts when he wakes from his cat naps.

Either way, Kame gets to witness runway models close up and be part of every process that contributes to a show. He gets to follow Koichi as he rushes from one show to another (and yet remains as flawless as ever) and just watches show after show from backstage. It’s like a dream come true for Kame to see so many top models in flesh and blood rather than on a TV screen, and while it makes him feel like he is really not up to par as compared to them, at the same time it inspires him to try and do better.

He won’t lie that most of the time it’s the negative half that takes over.

Kame also manages to make friends with various models and some of the big names seem to take a liking to him. Top model Kitamura Kazuki calls him earnest and serious, and veteran Fukuyama Masaharu invited him out for lunch at some classy café at Shinjuku. They tell him about their experiences and what Kame learns from them is that models need to have characters of their own that they can add to the clothes. He learns that a model’s job is to help the clothes speak, and to give form to the message that the clothes carry. A good model, they say, is one who has his head fixed on properly and is more than just a pretty face. An empty-headed model makes whatever clothes he wears look empty as well.

The idea that modeling is more than being a perfect body comforts Kame a little on the inside. But he is not sure if he can actually do it.

 

***

 

Nakamaru, on the other hand, gets busier. There are more phonecalls coming in, more arrangements to be made, more appointments to be confirmed. Kame notices that Nakamaru wakes up earlier each day despite the fact that he seems to be going to sleep later. One day, Nakamaru comes home with an ipad that was given to him by the company so that he can work from home. Just to annoy Nakamaru, Kame decides to download baseball games in the itwhen the owner goes to the washroom. Because baseball games are fun, Kame reasons.

When Nakamaru returns though, he just goes back to looking at the ipad and answering emails. Kame peeks over to see that while a bunch of them are related to Junno and other management things, a fair bit is about him. Some of them are emails sent by Nakamaru to help pimp Kame out. The younger man thinks sometimes that maybe if he worked harder, did better, then Nakamaru wouldn’t have to do so much for him. Nakamaru accepted him when he was at his lowest, helped him out as a manager, served as his emotional support…

“Sorry,” he whispers.

“Why are you apologizing?”

“Nothing,” He lets his chin sit on Nakamaru’s shoulder.

Nakamaru smells Kame’s shampoo and his stomach does a little flip. He has always known that Kame is charming. He wishes that he was immune to it, but everytime Kame looks at him, he doesn’t really know how to respond. It does not help that once in a while, Kame will have such a vulnerable look on his face that it makes Nakamaru want to do something – anything – to make Kame feel better. Sometimes Kame tells him his insecurities, but Nakamaru has always felt that Kame is a diamond that is already shining so bright – just that he does not know it yet. And the only thing he can do is to help Kame shine more.

 

***

 

Nakamaru and Kame finally get a day off together. They have talked about this day for quite some time. Kame keeps wanting to head over to the beach with Nakamaru, but when the break finally arrives, they are both too tired to go out for anything fancy.

Kame digs through the fridge and decides instead to fix the two of them curry with apples. Nakamaru answers more emails and phone calls (despite it being a day off) while Kame does the cooking. Their lunch turns out to be relatively quiet, probably due to the fact that they are both exhausted, and their so-called conversation involves someone saying something and another person only responding after two minutes. When Nakamaru finally stands up to put his dishes away, Kame stops him.

“You’ve got something at the corner of your lips,” he says. Using his free hand, Nakamaru wipes at his lips while looking at Kame for direction. He hears Kame laugh but before he can process what happens next, Kame is right in front of him – way too close – and is reaching over to wipe away the curry stain from Nakamaru’s lips. He then sucks the curry off his finger.

Nakamaru just stares at him.

His heart feels like it is beating a hundred times faster.

 

***

 

Kame ends up buying a camera – a second hand one – with his savings from the shows and photoshoots. He thinks that if he can understand photographers better, he might be able to learn more about modeling for magazines.

He makes Nakamaru keep one of his mornings free ( _there is no one else I can bring around_ , he claims) and drags him to Yoyogi Park so that he can take pictures of nature. Nakamaru, though complaining, makes some time anyway. The original plan was to have a leisure walk around the park to enjoy nature and take pictures too. However, it seems that nature does not seem to like Nakamaru at all. The birds he tries to feed fly away from him. When he decides to give up on that and walks instead on the grass, he slips and falls as the grass is still wet from the morning dew. He concludes that maybe sitting down is better and walks towards a bench. But after sitting down on one, he has to run away from the ants that seem to be crawling up his pants. All in all, the supposedly leisurely, nature-loving walk turned out to be a comedy.

It doesn’t help that Kame seems to be spared from all that.

Nakamaru wonders over and over in his head (and complains out loud too) about why he has agreed to come along.

When they finally return home after a couple of hours of roaming about, Kame proudly shows Nakamaru the pictures he has taken and the older one finds himself featured in many of them. Most of the pictures with him show him in weird postures and with weird facial expressions, like him running away from ants. As they look through the pictures, Kame laughs heartily at the size of Nakamaru’s nose, his constipated face, his scared-to-death face and, in general, just Nakamaru himself. The subject of the picture responds with various different versions of “seriously”, “not again,” and “delete this,”

“No way I am deleting this,” Kame tells him.

“But why?” Nakamaru groans. Why does he like someone like Kame?

“I want to document the time we spend together,”

Nakamaru realizes with a start that Kame is serious about that.

 

***

 

A couple of months later, Kame gets an offer for the SHUUJI TO AKIRA brand for school boys. It is not the runway show that he dreams of, but a catalogue photoshoot for a mid range brand. Nakamaru isn’t sure how the client found Kame but he specifically asked to see Kame and accepted him straight away, along with Johnny’s Golden Boy, Yamashita Tomohisa (otherwise known as Yamapi).

The only problem is that Jin and Yamashita are best friends.

And Yamashita can’t stand Kame.

It is thus not a surprise that the first day of shooting ends with the photographer calling it off because the two boys refused to even look at each other. The next day, the same thing happens again and the photographer gets so upset with them that he says he will fire them both if they didn’t solve whatever was wrong between them.

“I am not sure what your problem with me is, but I am sorry, so can we try to work together?” Kame tries to approach Yamashita on his way out of the studio. He needs the job more than Yamapi, so if he has to swallow his pride a little…

Yamapi turns around and looks at him.

“You don’t?” He says, tone raising a little, and the warning bells in Kame’s head ring. “Do you have any idea about the suffering you put Jin through?”

“Suffering?” Kame questions. His feeling of dread increases.

“You made him leave,”

“I did not, he wanted to leave,”

“Stop lying,”

Pi’s fist ends up connecting with Kame’s face.

“Don’t say things you know nothing about,” Yamapi says.

“Don’t say things YOU know nothing about,” He returns the punch.

They glare at each other and storm off in opposite directions.

 

***

  
Kame returns home to a worried Nakamaru.

Unsurprisingly, his manager has been contacted promptly in the aftermath of the fight, and Kame has not answered to any of Nakamaru’s phone calls or mails. When their paths cross, the younger man chooses to walk past Nakamaru, without a word of explanation, until the older man grabs his wrist to try to stop him.

“I’m fine,” He struggles out of Nakamaru’s grip.

“You are not,” Nakamaru says.

Their eyes meet.

Kame sighs and lets Nakamaru drag him to sit down. He hears the soft sigh that Nakamaru lets out as he opens the first aid box. Guilt starts to bite Kame as he thinks about how his manager-cum-housemate has been worried about him while he decided to turn off his phone to “chill out”. But he really needed the time alone. He watches as Nakamaru takes out some cotton and dips it in disinfectant. He feels the warmth of Nakamaru’s fingers on the curve of his jaw as he lifts his face to a better angle. The medicine tingles on his cheeks but his heart warms at the sight of the concern in Nakamaru’s eyes.

Kame tells himself that he only wants to see Nakamaru’s eyes shine with pride for him and nothing else.

After Nakamaru puts the medicine box away, he sits quietly beside Kame.

“Jin… is a very special person to me,” he starts after a long while, and he shifts closer to Nakamaru. Kame is feeling scared, as he has not told anyone about what he really feels about this, and he needs Nakamaru’s warmth to give him the courage to voice out things.

Jin was offered a job to do freelance modelling by his mother’s friend and Jin dragged Kame along, his best friend at that time, because he didn’t want to be alone. For some reason, people seemed to like the idea of Akame (a name squash between Akanishi and Kamenashi) and they got a lot of offers for them to appear in shoots together. Unsurprisingly, they ended up spending a lot of time together and people started to ask them whether they were gay for each other. Kame didn’t mind, but Jin started making a huge fuss about it. It doesn’t help that Jin, by then, had come to want to do his own things (which included going to L.A and becoming a musician) while Kame was happy with whatever work they were doing right now and probably going more into more professional assignments. They started getting into arguments very often and made their own friends in order to lessen their reliance on each other. With that, their mindsets changed even more and the distance between them grew even more. It didn’t help that they were both passionate about things in general, so private arguments got mixed up (to Kame’s chagrin) with work. And for a while, they were just getting bad publicity from everywhere because they just refused to cooperate.

And then Jin left.

Kame didn’t really know what the reason was. Part of him was relieved, but the other part was angry that Jin could be this irresponsible; still, life goes on.

Life always goes on.

“Do you love him?” Nakamaru asked after a long pause. He hastily adds, “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,”

“For a while, I did,” Kame admits, “But after a while, I just realized that our personalities are way too similar for us to work. And… I was the only one doing the loving, ”

Nakamaru makes a noise to indicate that he is still listening.

“I feel selfish for saying this, but… I just want to be loved for once,”

 _I already do_ , Nakamaru wants to say. But he decides that it’s not a good time to so he decides to wrap an arm around Kame’s shoulders and squeeze them. Kame lets his head drop onto Nakamaru’s shoulder and they stayed that way the whole night.

 

***

 

Kame plays with the phone in his hand and throws a glance at Nakamaru who is sitting beside him. While Yamashita has enough work on his hand to afford to be fired from this one, Kame doesn’t. That means that Kame has to take the initiative to clear up any misconceptions that Yamashita has. Nakamaru sits closer by Kame’s side and places his hand on top of Kame’s as a sign of encouragement.

If Nakamaru is around, he will be alright – he thinks to himself as he dials.

It turns out that Yamapi was under the impression that Kame had made Jin leave because he wanted to hog all the attention to himself. Kame had to explain himself and, not surprisingly, the conversation was awkward and at times strained. Even after Kame puts down the phone, he thinks that Yamapi’s not convinced about it, but at least he was satisfied enough to continue working with Kame. That, to Kame, is good enough.

Not everything can be completely solved – at least not right now.

And the shoot goes on relatively smooth from there on. Maybe it’s because of how he and Yamashita look positively gay or maybe it’s the Yamashita-factor, but Kame starts to become more popular, especially among (but not limited to) the younger girls, and more jobs begin to come in. It is mostly catalogue photoshoots and some smaller runway shows but Kame feels like life is getting back on track a little. He gets some praises here and there and it helps to build up his confidence a little.

It is not like he is completely confident now though, he gets self-conscious when he gets stares from directors or photographers. Just that, practice in itself is a confidence-building measure. More than that, it helps to know that when he goes home everyday, there is someone who will never judge him.

 

***

 

With both Kamenashi and Taguchi’s careers on track, it is thus not a surprise that Nakamaru gets promoted to senior manager and with that, he gets invited to the main office for celebrations. Of course Kame and Taguchi get invited as well. After all the formalities are done and the crowd progressively leaves, Nakamaru spends some time with Ueda, Koki, Taguchi and Kame at one of the tables in a corner. Halfway through their chat, Kame gets called out to another table by one of the Johnny’s designers and they start to engage in a conversation of sorts.

“He is totally not here with us,” Koki comments and snaps his fingers at Nakamaru, who has been looking in the general direction of Kame.

Nakamaru bats Koki’s hand away and comments, “I am!”

“So not, “ Koki says while Ueda and Taguchi expresses their agreement. “You are totally looking at Kame,” Koki continues.

Nakamaru blushes at being caught.

“I am just worried that some of the seniors might give him a bad time,”

The three make collective _aww_ sounds and Nakamaru shushes them up quickly.

“What are you guys thinking about?”

“You always talk about Kame when we are together, you look out for him all the time, you worry about him all the time and, for god’s sake, you are both living in the same house! What else can we think about?” Koki says.

“That we are just friends?” Nakamaru replies.

“Boyfriends!” Taguchi pips in, “Boyfriends are friends too.”

Nakamaru hides his face in his hands, “We are not!”

“I bet 10 dollars that they are going to get together during the next month!”

“I bet 20 for 2 months since they are both stupid,” Ueda says.

Nakamaru walks away from the table.

 

***

 

Kame takes Nakamaru on a road trip with a car. More accurately, Kame steals Nakamaru’s car keys and drags him along onto a road trip. He knows that Nakamaru cannot say no to him anyway. Nakamaru can’t help but ask Kame where they are going and what plans they have for lunch and dinner. Kame just shrugs at him.

He should have known.

They end up at a beach, because Kame seems naturally attracted to places with sun and the sea. Kame wants to surf but it turns out that the beach is out of boards for rent, so he ends up dragging Nakamaru to play water games, laughing at how scared he looks most of the time.

They decided to call it a day after a couple of hours of play, and rest on the sand. All the fooling around has made them really tired and they both feel content with not having to make any conversation. Kame makes an unintentional turn towards Nakamaru and their eyes meet for a moment. Kame feels something akin to electricity running through his body and it makes him jerk away in shock.

He knows that feeling.

It’s attraction. He has felt it before, but never this strongly. He turns Nakamaru around to face him and is quite sure that Nakamaru, this time around, is trying to avoid looking him in the eyes. But Kame lets his own pair of eyes examine the features on Nakamaru’s face. He remembers all the times they have been together – the ups and downs, the various expressions that Nakamaru’s face can make. A warm feeling engulfs him entirely and Kame wonders why he hasn’t noticed it until now. Maybe he is too romantic and only waits for the “electricity” before he can tell that it’s love. Maybe he always thinks about love as something that needs to conquer all boundaries and go through terrible sufferings, so he has not realized that perhaps, not all love is like that.

Love is, perhaps, waking up and knowing that there is someone else out there whom your existence is essential to.

Love is, perhaps, about you wanting to share your life with him.

Love is, perhaps, the person who is there when you need him the most.

And love is, perhaps, just simple things like laughing together.

And for Kame, love is Nakamaru because there is no one else who is as important to him as Nakamaru.

The pieces start to fall into place for Kame and he knows there is only one thing that he should do. He decides to lean in and place a chaste kiss on Nakamaru’s lips. He pulls back to see Nakamaru’s eyes turn from bewilderment to understanding to amazement.

At that moment, Kame thinks that he can stare at his face for a long, long time.

And he knows that he has made the right decision.

Nakamaru does not kiss him back; instead, he reaches out and holds Kame’s hand, intertwining their fingers together as they sit side by side, watching the sun set and listening to the waves hitting the shore.

 

***

 

“I bet he slept with the designers to get the job,”

“Have you seen his childhood photos? I bet he got under the knife,”

“Hush, he’s coming,”

Although Kame’s career has been moving towards a decent direction, the rumours don’t stop. Kame finally learns that they never do, so he walks up and smiles at them.

Because there is someone there who will always believe in him.

 

***

 

“Kame-chan?”

Ah, it’s Kimura Takuya.

“Apparently Beamz is missing a person for this year’s catalogue for Japan and they want me to suggest some fresh faces…”

“Yes!” Kame replies, a little too early, and he chuckles into the phone embarrassedly because of his over-enthusiasm.

“Come down for a fitting tomorrow, okay? My manager will text you the details,”

Kame does not sleep that night – partly due to excitement and partly due to anxiety. Nakamaru is, on the other hand, positively terrified. He is worried that he might say something out of his depth and offend the clients, or not read the situation right, and so he ends up spending the whole night reading about all the people who will be there.

The fitting goes smoothly, with various good comments about how he exceeds their expectations and how the jeans sit very nicely on his hips. He gets other comments about bone structure and pretty back too.

“You can do it,” Kimuya Takuya tells Kame when he comes over for a visit while Kame is applying make up.

Nakamaru watches as Kame’s face brightens up at his senior’s encouragement.

 

***

 

Kame tells Nakamaru that he wants to take Nakamaru on a real date with his paycheck after the Beamz deal. When Nakamaru emerges from his room dressed in his usual argyle top, Kame clicks his tongue and shoves Nakamaru back into his room. He promptly proceeds to throw Nakamaru’s clothes out of his wardrobe. First he pushes the shirts and suits that Nakamaru has to one corner, but not without commenting that Aoki has better work clothes than Aoyama for about the same price.

“You need more variety in your wardrobe,” he comments while throwing away argyle after argyle, in search of Nakamaru’s casual clothes, “And better fitting ones,”

“What is wrong with loose-fitting clothes?”

Kame hums, “People with assets should flaunt them?”

Nakamaru flushes, “What assets are you talking about?”

Kame manages to find a pair of skinny leather jeans hidden underneath layers of straight cut jeans and dangles it in front of Nakamaru.

“No way, definitely no way,” Nakamaru shakes his head vigorously while Kame stretches the jeans and puts the pair against Nakamaru’s hips.

“Definitely your size,” Kame says, ignoring Nakamaru’s mutterings.

“Seriously?”

“Wear it or I am not buying you dinner,”

Nakamaru ends up wearing that pair of leather jeans, a checked vest (which Kame has donated to him) and his Aoyama-bought white shirt. Kame has problems with Nakamaru’s hair as well and attempts to fix it with his collection of hair products, only to conclude that it has to do with the style of the hair cut rather than the styling. He then promises to book Nakamaru an appointment with someone he knows. Nakamaru was about to leave the house when Kame stops him once again and sprays on him one of those Calvin Klein colognes (some senior in the Agency has given it to him). Even Nakamaru has to admit that it does smell nice.

They end up in a French restaurant with a whole row of wine glasses and more cutlery than Nakamaru has seen in his whole life. His eyes shift around the various plates that are placed on the table and he starts to panic internally. He looks around at the other people who are enjoying their meals and wonders if he is going to screw up and end up embarrassing himself, when he feels Kame’s hand being gently placed on top of his, reassuring him while communicating their orders to waiter. The waiter recommends the wine to go with their food and Nakamaru still does not understand half of what he is saying.

 _If Kame is around, I guess it will be fine_ , he thinks to himself.

Kame goes on to explain the basic rules of French cuisine to Nakamaru, which wine glass for which type of wine and which type of fork for which meat. Nakamaru – part intrigued and part overwhelmed – listens carefully and takes down mental notes as the appetizers are served.

Over dinner, Kame tells Nakamaru about the gossips he hears from the other models backstage. He then fills Nakamaru in with the latest trends that are coming out from the various luxury brands as they are being served the main course. By dessert, Nakamaru is slightly less scared and lets himself be entertained by Kame’s little monologue about everything and nothing at all.

Kame pays for the dinner and they drive up to a hill nearby to look at the city lights at night. Kame winds the windows down after stopping the car at a scenic spot and switches off the air conditioning. He lets the cool breeze blow against his face as he looks out to the lights coming out from the apartments below them.

“Thank you,” Kame says suddenly.

“For?” Nakamaru asks. There was the sound of shuffling and before Nakamaru can react, Kame has leant over so that his face is right beside his own.

“Everything,” Kame whispers into his ear.

**Author's Note:**

> For capslock_turtle 2012. Betaed by: Isa


End file.
